This is the Ashlands, valheim's newest biome.
In this video I'm gonna show you the start of our journey to try and conquer
this unforgiving place,
along with my initial thoughts and
the things I've learnt so far.
So to give you some background, we'll be
playing on this world that some friends and I used to spend a fair bit of time on.
Over a year ago, we managed to defeat the Mistlands boss, and then everyone
else immediately stopped playing...
So when I loaded in it was a bit of a
surprise to see I had no equipment and my skills had been decimated.
But then, it all came rushing back to me.
This poor character, BakedNotFried, was the
one that I used in some of my first videos, and over that time it has
died in so many stupid ways.
I've also destroyed our main base a few
times, but at least I backed up the world save before doing that, I just wish I
did the same with my own character.
Being too considerate is
defintiely my biggest flaw.
Anyway, I just used lots of the
hard-earnt materials everyone had spent many hours collecting
to get myself an upgraded set of carapace armour, along with the
second upgrade for the black forge.
For the most part I'd kept myself spoiler free so
I wasn't sure which melee weapons would work well in Ashlands. I settled on the trusty mistwalker.
This gameplay was recorded on the initial public test version of the Ashlands update, and since
then, some bugs have already been fixed.
I only noticed one visual bug, weird
lines were crossing through terrain that we'd previously terraformed. On the other
hand, maybe this was intended by the devs.
While waiting for everyone to reunite,
we spent a bit of time familiarising ourselves with this world and getting
back to doing some of the old chores,
well, actually
I sat there and just recorded it, but don't let that break the immersion.
When we were all ready, I picked up the drop from the mistlands boss, which was no longer
a placeholder, but was now the majestic carapace.
This allowed us to make the artisan press
which was a new upgrade for the artisan table, which meant we could now craft
ceramic plates. Very exciting.
Crafting these plates unlocked a couple more
things. Firstly, there was the shield core which was used to make a shield generator.
Based on the description, the shield could protect us from the heat of the Ashlands,
so we were going to bring one with us.
More importantly, we could make a
new boat, and it looked massive.
We needed more fine wood to
build it, so we did the classic "Chop tree, kill greyling, chop tree".
By the time we'd collected enough fine wood, we were raided by some swamp creatures.
By expertly and professionally left clicking until all the blobs were dead
I was sure we ready for the Ashlands....
Before setting off we decided to go to sleep...
and I had full confidence in my team.
The next day we set off to the harbour. You might
notice we were all wearing lox and wolf capes.
One new change is that the feather
cape now makes you weak to fire, so it seemed like wearing it in a place
filled with fire wasn't the greatest idea.
At the port I put down the new dragon
boat and it really did look great...
Taking it for a spin, and it did have a massive
turning circle like you'd probably expect.
We were in the centre of the map and
ashlands is always located in the far south.
So, this was a trip that took us all day...
and all night.
The next morning we were deep in the south and we
found our last chance to safely put down a portal in case something went wrong.
We didn't do it.
I should point out the devs made a preperation
guide to make sure you're ready for the Ashlands, and my idea was that,
well, I didn't read it.
I started to regret that decision,
because I was getting worried that the ashlands werent loading on this world.
It felt like we were getting close to the bottom of the map, and we still
hadn't seen any sign of the place.
That was, until we spotted these
spiky rocks in the distance.
So we'd been welcomed to the
biome by the new Bonemaw serpent and things just got more rough from there.
The sea churned as we approached the rocks, and I wasn't even sure if we were meant to try
get this massive boat through such small gaps.
Of course, Hugin couldn't wait to tell me all
about this place.... but, we had bigger issues...
We couldn't fit through, so I
backed up a little and tried again
After squeezing through that tight
spot, things opened up a little.
As we kept heading south, the heat became
more noticable and finally we could see some trees in the distance.
So before landing these tips will save you some misery:
Put down a nearby portal before entering the Ashlands, and when you do land,
immediately place a portal in a safe area.
Of course, fight only when you have rested
bonus. Bonemass and fire resistance will help you out a lot, and don't wear the feather cape.
Most of these are just stardard general advice, but I bring it up because we
did very few of these things.
The number of enemies
overwhelmed us straight away.
While we took out a few of the new
creatures, I felt so rusty at this game.
I noticed my stamina was regenerating
so slowly, but I hadn't realised it was because of the lack of rested bonus.
Not long afterwards, and we'd all died without even placing a portal once.
So, we'd made zero progress and we'd lost all of our best equipment.
We got any armour and weapons that we could, and talking to Hugin confirmed that
we probably needed another dragon boat to make it through the seas alive.
This meant we had to do some more chopping, greydwarf killing, and chopping.
We had plenty of black marble so making more ceramic plates wasn't an issue.
Because we weren't taking any more metal with us, this time we could portal to a swamp biome that
was a fair bit closer, and build the boat there.
As we set off, we said our goodbyes
and headed back to the south.
This time we did put down a safety portal
near the ashlands, and before going in to battle, we got a good night's sleep.
The next day, with a full rested bonus we went back and continued sailing. We also found a much
easier path through the rocks back to the land.
When we did land, we were much more prepared
for what was to come. After taking out one of those annoying Voltures,
the main aim was to protect the portal that we'd just made.
And here's another tip for you; don't build anything on top of these
big stones because this might happen.
Despite the setback, we were slowly
starting to clear out the horde of enemies.
While the other portal was still floating in the
air, we placed a second one on much safer ground.
The Porcupine weapon i was using seemed to
be resisted by most of the creatures here,
so I decided to go to my tombstone
and pick up my old mistwalker.
This seemed to do a much better job. It wasn't
long until the battle was won.. for now.
I was going through the process
of picking up my lost equipment, and sharing the new materials with
the otherss, when I overheard this:
So I went back, and found out the hard way that
I took the portal still floating in the air.
I didn't realise how many enemies there were until
they started firing volleys of arrows at me.
I did not want to have to make a third boat and
come back, so to protect the portals I selflessly lead the enemies away from our stuff.
And while you watch me sacrifice myself, since this was recorded, there have been a
couple of changes to balance enemy numbers,
including fixing a glitch that caused enemies
to be alerted to your location way too often.
I don't mind having a lot of spawns in an
area, but, fighting enemies would start to feel pointless because by the time you'd killed them
all, about 10 more will have appeared behind you.
I haven't played since they made these changes,
but hopefully now theyve got the balance right.
Anyway, I eventually got absolutely destroyed.
Luckily, I was once again able to sleep off my light case of death and I was free
to waste even more of our resources.
I picked up more drops from the Ashlands which
unlocked many more build pieces, but I hadn't yet found anything to make new weapons.
The next day we went back as a group.
The area was clear and we got the shield
generator working by adding bones as fuel.
We didn't really get much time to check it
out because this new monstrosity appeared.
This enemy, the Morgen, breaks the trend
of the large creatures also being slow.
The fact that it moves around so much
does at least give you time to get back stamina and prepare for its next attacks.
Luckily it didn't seem too interested in breaking our stuff, but in any case we
tried to keep it away from the portal.
After taking it down, we didn't have time
to waste. I started getting some of my better equipment from my tombstone,
and I finally got a chance to check out the other enemies individually.
The lava blobs just self descruct, which interestingly also damages
any other nearby enemies.
Like most archers, the Charred
marksman isn't a problem in a 1v1, especially when you get in close.
The warrior doesn't stay staggered for long and has a few different moves, one in particular
definitely tries to throw off your timing.
The twitchers are just meth-heads that got
lost and accidently ended up in the ashlands, they're the grunts of the area and
seem to be the least dangerous.
Just saying near the base kept attracting more
enemies to us. I now know this was probably due to the glitch, but it didn't make sense to
stay here and have to constantly fight.
So we started exploring further into the biome.
After getting the rest of my things from the tombstone, I started placing campfires
to try suppress the new spawns.
I also checked out something
very important to me....
Munin was hovering in the air just to tell
me something that did not help us at all, so we decided to just head further inland.
We ran into another Morgen, this time a one star variant, and by the time we were
FINALLY about to kill it, you guessed it...
On a more positive note, there was a green light
in the distance that looked very promising.
Before we could investigate, we ran
into another new creature, the Asksvin.
If you don't know, this text here means
it's able to be tamed. There was however, a bit of a mixup where we simultaneously
dug a hole to trap and tame it,
while also killing it.
We weren't worried, based on how many creatures we'd already seen, we
knew it wouldn't take long to find another one.
It was getting dark, we were
going to turn back for the day, but in the distance we saw something.
Against our better judgement, we went to see what this creature was.
It was called the Fallen Valkyrie, and unfortunately we didn't have
the chance to appreciate it, because once again there was now
another army ready to fight us.
It seemed to have a a ranged attack that would
cause a patch of ground to catch on fire, and it could also do this Crash Bandicoot spin attack.
Anyway, a member of our party was getting low on health so the rest tried to slow the enemies down
a little while they went back towards the portal.
Of course, we didn't want to lead
them all back there, so we tried to slowly thin out their numbers.
We did take out a fair few enemies, but despite our best efforts, the Fallen
Valkyrie, along with a couple of other enemies did indeed make it back to our portal.
We weren't doing too well so we bravely decided to just leave the enemies there.
Luckily they're always kind enough to wait there without breaking your
stuff when you're not around.
Back at the base, I picked up the Asksksvin hide.
This unlocked new set of light and mage armours.
I also checked out the workbench and found that
I could now make a couple of types of payloads, wihch according to the description
could be launched by catapults.
This would've been really cool, you know,
if we'd the stuff to make a catapult....
The next day, while everyone was getting prepared
for the fight, I found some friendly Greydwarves to help me work on my shield skills.
And once we were all ready, we gathered, determined to take out the creatures near our
portal and for once, actually make some progress.
Standing in the rain, we used the
bonemass power, and then headed back in.
When we came out the other side, the
Fallen Valkyrie was waiting for us.
It was nice enough to use a fire
attack and help me dry off.
It was cool seeing the shield protect us from its
ranged attacks when it moved outside the barrier.
And although it may have seemed like a heartless
monster, it was considerate enough to help out melee players by going to ground level.
In the end, the shield protected us from one final attack, before we promptly sent it back to jesus.
This time, the plan was to make our way to the green beam in the sky without stopping
to fight everything along the way.
There was just one problem... That big hole
we made to try tame the Asksksksvin. Yeah, we kinda forgot about that...
The number of enemies was once again getting pretty crazy,
so we did end up clearing once more.
Originally a hinderance, the hole did come
in handy when a morgen got stuck in there.
We left it in timeout so it could
think about what it had done.
We kept making our way towards the light,
and the path ahead was filled with lava.
Call me crazy, but trying to swim
through it was proabbly a bad idea, so instead we went around the side.
I couldn't resist seeing what hitting the unstable lava rock would do and...
surprise surprise, it exploded.
Inside was what I will always
read as "prostitute powder".
After taking down yet another Morgen, we
finally had a clear path to the source of the green light.
The charred fortress.
It seemed heavily protected, and one of the team
decided to see what would happen if you ran into the door covered in spikes...
pretty much what you'd expect.
On the top of one of the corners there was a
ballista that looked as useless as the one you can make, as well as some some archers.
We made our way to the other side which was more quiet and tried to use a
demolisher to break down the walls.
It wasn't doing any damage, and I think
knowing we probably needed to make a catapult to get in made us give up more quickly.
On the way back we saw a Charred Warlock, it musn't have been popular with the
others, since they pushed it off the wall.
Now my recording cuts out here as you see it
summon a twitcher which looked pretty cool.
We did end up killing it, but you'll
have just have to imagine that.
That night, we headed back
without any loss of life.
It kind of felt like a failure, because
we didn't gain anything new, but on the other hand, we now had something to aim for,
and it was clear we were missing the materials needed to make something to
break into that fortress.
The next morning and were
greeted by another surprise.
A new type of raid...
Now I'm not sure where this Dvergr came from but it seemed happy
to help us out so I wasn't complaining.
These raids create more Monuments of Tourment,
which spawn enemies until they're destroyed.
We'd already taken out a lot of these in our
short time in Ashlands, and at least without the new patches, destroying them didn't seem to
make much difference to the number of enemies.
Anyway, as the raid ended, the Dvergr
definitely wasn't enjoying the new update.
I let him be as we went to destroy the
other spawners, since they dont seem to disappear after the raid is over.
After we'd cleaned up the area, we then explored in another direction.
We could see what looked like a massive building in the distance, and as we
entered, it was clear these were ruins.
Before going in, we did have to turn around and
fight everything that had started following us, so that they wouldn't destory the
stairs leading into the building.
When we'd taken care of the last of them,
we were able to enter the building.
I was surprised to see they'd turned
Valheim into a platformer where if you fall, you probably lose all your stuff forever, and your
only goal is to break all the pottery you can.
That was pretty much all we did in here.
There was a giant rock sticking out of the lava that looked different
to everything else I'd seen,
but before we could investigate we just
had another weird lizard thing in our way.
I almost felt bad teaming up on it like this,
but then I remembered that that's what this biome had been doing to us the whole time.
To get to the rock, we made a path through the ruins so we didn't need
to try jump over the lava.
The creatures really didn't want us
checking out the funny looking rock,
as another Asksksksvin literally jumped
out of the lava just to get in my way.
After we dealt with it in a similar
manner to previous one, we finally found what we were looking for, Flametal Ore.
Just the act of mining this ore was probably enough to alert every single creature in
the whole god damn biome to our location.
First a Morgen appeared by itself, but it
didn't take long from there for chaos to erupt.
I was just concentrating on not getting
knocked into the lava when tragety struck....
So it seems that mining some Flametal ore
starts a timer for the whole thing to sink, just like when mining Chitin
on the backs of Leviathans.
Maybe this stupid bird was trying to warn us,
but it was hovering out of reach in the air.
We couldn't think about it for now, because
we still had a massive fight on our hands....
After the battle was won, we could see
another Flametal rock in the distance, but this one was surrounded by lava.
It was getting late, so we picked up what little ore we'd been able to mine and headed back.
The next day, and I found out we'd got ourselves a grand total of 16 flametal ore.
While this definitely wasn't much, I couldn't wait to smelt it and see what it would unlock.
Unfortunately, this meant we had to take one of our boats all the way to
our blast furnaces at home.
I was considering trying to jump over the boiling
water direclty onto the boat we wanted to take, but in the end we did the sensible
thing and went around the long way.
While I was still trying to back the boat
out, one of those serpents appeared,
and we learnt that it actually
has a ranged attack. Great!!
It felt like the serpent was toying with
us, taking chunks out of the ship for fun.
Meanwhile, I was trying to do a 50 point turn just
trying to get the boat in the right direction.
Even though it was risky, as soon as I
could, I unfurled the sails and went at full speed just to try get away from the thing.
Unfortunately, the wind decided now was the best time to change direction and slow us down.
While this ship was so massive that it felt like it was taking up half of the screen, at least
it seems to be extremely sturdy, I mean, it must have been to withstand all of those attacks!
We were still being followed as we crawled to a halt with the seas churning once again.
Nonetheless, we pushed foward and as we started to get past the rocks, the seas
calmed down and the water was probably too cold for serpent to follow us any further.
We were finally free from this absolute hell.
For now.
Now I'll save you the 40-something minute trip back and get to the good stuff.
Smleting the Flametal ore unlocked so many new things.
The next set of heavy armour was available, and it even had a built-in heat resistance.
I could also make this sick-looking battering ram which I'm sure would be
useful for those fortress doors.
Also, I'm so keen to try ride one
of those Asksksksksvin things.
I'm wondering if there's another way to get
more of the ore before it sinks into the lava.
Possibly this new Staff of Fracturing
might help with that, and it seems like these Basalt Bombs might let us cross the lava.
I really don't know, but I think the plan will be to take more metals back to the
Ashlands and try out the battering ram.
So far I'm enjoying this more than the Mistlands.
I love the visual design and hopefully now they've got the right balance on enemy numbers.
There's so many things I still want to try out, and I can't wait to play it more.
I haven't decided if I will make this a series of videos, so let me know if you'd
like to see more, because we will definitely continue this playthrough, but I'm just
not sure if I'll be recording it too.
So, I'll leave it there.
As always, thank you so much for watching. Cheers.
